The story
Pre-colonization
The Osage are descendants of cultures of Indigenous peoples who had been in North America for thousands of years. Studies of their traditions and language show that they were part of a group of Dhegihan Siouan–speaking people who lived in the Ohio River valley area, extending into present-day Kentucky. According to their own stories, common to other Dhegihan-Siouan tribes, such as the Ponca, Omaha, Kaw and Quapaw, they migrated west as a result of war with the Haudenosaunee and/or to reach more game.
Scholars are divided as to whether they think the Osage and other groups left before the Beaver Wars of the Haudenosaunee. Some believe that the Osage started migrating west as early as 1200 CE and are descendants of the Mississippian culture in the Ohio and Mississippi valleys. They attribute their style of government to effects of the long years of war with invading Haudenosaunee. After resettling west of the Mississippi River, the Osage were sometimes allied with the Illiniwek and sometimes competed with them, as that tribe was also driven west of Illinois by warfare with the powerful Haudenosaunee.
Eventually the Osage and other Dhegihan-Siouan peoples reached their historic lands, likely developing and splitting into the above tribes in the course of the migration to the Great Plains. By the 17th century, many of the Osage had settled near the Osage River in the western part of present-day Missouri. They were recorded in 1690 as having adopted the horse, a valuable resource often acquired through raids on other tribes. The desire to acquire more horses contributed to their trading with the French. They attacked and defeated indigenous Caddo tribes to establish dominance in the Plains region by 1750, with control "over half or more of Missouri, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Kansas," which they maintained for nearly 150 years. Together with the Kiowa, Comanche, and Apache, they dominated western Oklahoma.
The Osage held high rank among the old hunting tribes of the Great Plains. From their traditional homes in the woodlands of present-day Missouri and Arkansas, the Osage would make semi-annual buffalo hunting forays into the Great Plains to the west. They also hunted deer, rabbit, and other wild game in the central and eastern parts of their domain. Near their villages, the women cultivated varieties of corn, squash, and other vegetables which they processed for food. They also harvested and processed nuts and wild berries. In their years of transition, the Osage had cultural practices that had elements of the cultures of both Woodland Native Americans and the Great Plains peoples. The villages of the Osage were important hubs in the Great Plains trading network served by Kaw people as intermediaries.
Traditional spirituality
Osage people who adhere to traditional customs believe they are an integral part of a broader universe. Their ceremonies and social organization represent what is observed around them that was created by a supreme life force known as Wah'Kon-Tah or Wakonda. Everything created has the spirit of Wakonda within it, from trees, plants, and the sky to animals and human beings. They believe there are two main divisions to life, consisting of the sky and earth. Life is created in the sky, and descends to the earth in material form. The sky is viewed as masculine in nature and the earth as feminine.
They revere the behavior of animals such as hawks, deer and bears, which are considered to be very courageous. Other species lived long lives, such as pelicans. Because humans lacked many of the characteristics naturally found within other forms of life around them, they were expected to learn from the others and emulate characteristics desirable for survival. Survival was not a competition between humans and non-humans, but rather a struggle between human communities.
Wakonda was viewed as "the mysterious life-force that pervades the sun", "moon", "earth", "and the stars", as well as the embodiment of order on Earth, which was seen as a place where chaos mostly won.
Efforts for survival were the responsibility of the people and not of Wakonda, although they might ask Wakonda for help. Considering life a struggle among human groups, they viewed warfare as necessary for self-preservation. The people's survival was dependent on their ability to defend themselves. Over time, the Osage developed clan and kinship systems that mirrored the cosmos as they saw it. Osage clans were typically named after elements of their world: animals, plants and weather phenomenon such as storms.
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This was a symbolic representation. Each clan had its own responsibilities within the tribe. Names of clans included Red Cedar (Hon-tse-shu-tsy), Travelers in the Mist (Moh-sho-tsa-moie), Deer Lungs (Tah-lah-he) and Elk (O-pon). Children born to a certain clan had a ceremonial naming in order to introduce them to the community. Without a ceremonial name, an Osage child could not participate in ceremonies, so naming was an important part of Osage identity. The people regulated marriage through the clans: clan members had to marry people from opposite clans or divisions. Clan representation was expressed in the arrangement of Osage villages. The sky people lived on the side opposite the earth people, and the lodges of the Osage spiritual leaders were situated in between the two sides.
Osage life was highly ritualized, where there were certain ceremonies would be performed utilizing bundles, ceremonial pipes which used tobacco as offerings to seek Wakonda's aid. These ceremonies were presided over by Osage medicine people and spiritual leaders. Although some of the literature cites these individuals as "priests", this term is misleading and is more Eurocentric in nature. Ceremonies, although very elaborate served basic functions such as requesting aid from Wakonda for continued tribal existence and the blessing of a long life through children.
Ceremonial songs were also a way to document the knowledge spiritual leaders gained, considering there was no written language. Songs of this nature were taught and shared among only those other Osages who were sincere and had proven themselves. Many songs and ceremonies were created for all facets of life such as adoption, marriage, war, agriculture and to honor the rising of the sun in the morning.
During funerals, the faces of dead Osage were traditionally "painted to signal [his or] her tribe and clan".
Early French colonization
In 1673, French explorers Jacques Marquette and Louis Jolliet were among the first Europeans documented to contact the Osage, traveling southward from present-day Canada in their journey along the Mississippi River. Marquette's 1673 map noted the Kanza, Osage, and Pawnee tribes thrived in much of modern-day Kansas.
The Osage called the Europeans I'n-Shta-Heh (Heavy Eyebrows) because of their facial hair. As experienced warriors, the Osage allied with the French, with whom they traded, against the Illiniwek during the early 18th century. The first half of the 1720s was a time of more interaction between the Osage and French colonizers. Étienne de Veniard, Sieur de Bourgmont founded Fort Orleans in their territory; it was the first European colonial fort on the Missouri River. Jesuit missionaries were assigned to French forts and established missions in an attempt to convert the Osage, learning their language to ingratiate themselves. In 1724, the Osage allied with the French rather than the Spanish in their fight for control of the Mississippi region. In 1725, Bourgmont led a delegation of Osage and other tribal chiefs to Paris. They were shown around France, including a visit to Versailles, Château de Marly and Fontainebleau. They hunted with Louis XV in the royal forest and saw an opera.
During the French and Indian War (the North American front of the Seven Years' War), France was defeated by Great Britain and in 1763 ceded control over their lands east of the River Mississippi to the British Crown. The French Crown made a separate deal with Spain, which took nominal control of much of the Illinois Country west of the great river. By the late 18th century, the Osage did extensive business with the French Creole fur trader René Auguste Chouteau, who was based in St. Louis. St. Louis was part of territory under nominal Spanish control after the Seven Years' War, but was dominated by French colonists.
They were the de facto European power in St. Louis and other settlements along the Mississippi, building their wealth on the fur trade. In return for the Chouteau brothers' building a fort in the village of the Great Osage 350 miles (560 km) southwest of St. Louis, the Spanish regional government gave the Chouteaus a six-year monopoly on trade (1794–1802). The Chouteaus named the post Fort Carondelet after the Spanish governor. The Osage were pleased to have a fur trading post nearby, as it gave them access to manufactured goods and increased their prestige among the tribes.
U.S. interaction
Lewis and Clark reported in 1804 that the peoples were the Great Osage on the Osage River, the Little Osage upstream, and the Arkansas band on the Verdigris River, a tributary of the Arkansas River. The Osage then numbered some 5,500. The Osage and Quapaw suffered extensive losses from smallpox in 1801–1802. Historians estimate up to 2,000 Osage died in the epidemic.
In 1804, after the United States made the Louisiana Purchase, the U.S. government appointed the wealthy French fur trader Jean-Pierre Chouteau, a half-brother of René Auguste Chouteau, as the Indian agent assigned to the Osage. In 1809, he founded the Saint Louis Missouri Fur Company with his son Auguste Pierre Chouteau and other prominent men of St. Louis, most of whom were of French-Creole descent, born in North America. Having lived with the Osage for many years and learned their language, Jean-Pierre Chouteau traded with them and made his home at present-day Salina, Oklahoma, in the western part of their territory.
After the Lewis and Clark Expedition was completed in 1806, Jefferson appointed Meriwether Lewis as Indian Agent for the Territory of Missouri and the region. There were continuing confrontations between the Osage and other tribes in this area. Lewis anticipated that the U.S. would have to go to war with the Osage, because of their raids on eastern Natives and European-American settlements. However, the U.S. lacked sufficient military strength to coerce Osage bands into ceasing their raids. It decided to supply other tribes with weapons and ammunition, provided they attack the Osage to the point they "cut them off completely or drive them from their country."
For instance, in September 1807, Lewis persuaded the Potawatomie, Sac, and Fox to attack an Osage village; three Osage warriors were killed. The Osage blamed the Americans for the attack. One of the Chouteau traders intervened and persuaded the Osage to conduct a buffalo hunt rather than seek retaliation by attacking Americans.
Lewis tried to control the Osage also by separating the friendly members from the hostile. In a letter dated August 21, 1808, that President Jefferson sent to Lewis, he says that he approves of the measures Lewis has taken in regards to making allies of the friendly Osage from those deemed as hostile. Jefferson writes, "we may go further, & as the principal obstacle to the Indians acting in large bodies is the want of provisions, we might supply that want, & ammunition also if they need it." But the goal foremost pursued by the U.S. was to push the Osage out of areas being settled by European Americans, who began to enter the Louisiana Territory after the U.S. acquired it.
The lucrative fur trade continued to stimulate the growth of St. Louis and attracted more settlers there. It became a major port on the Mississippi River. The U.S. and Osage signed their first treaty on November 10, 1808, by which the Osage made a major cession of land in present-day Missouri. Under the Osage Treaty, they ceded 52,480,000 acres (212,400 km2) to the federal government.
This treaty created a buffer line between the Osage and new European-American settlers in the Missouri Territory. It also established the requirement that the U.S. president had to approve all future land sales and cessions by the Osage. The Treaty of Ft. Osage states the U.S. would "protect" the Osage tribe "from the insults and injuries of other tribes of Indians, situated near the settlements of white people....". As was common in Native American relations with the federal government, the Osage found that the U.S. did not carry through on this commitment.
Wars with other tribes
The Choctaw chief Pushmataha, based in Mississippi, made his early reputation in battles against the Osage tribe in the area of southern Arkansas and their borderlands. In the early 19th century, some Cherokee, such as Sequoyah, moved from the southeast to the Arkansas River valley under pressure from European-American settlement in their traditional territory. They clashed there with the Osage, who controlled this area.
The Osage regarded the Cherokee as invaders. They began raiding Cherokee towns, stealing horses, carrying off captives (usually women and children), and killing others, trying to drive out the Cherokee with a campaign of violence and fear. The Cherokee were not effective in stopping the Osage raids and worked to gain support from related tribes as well as whites. The peoples confronted each other in the "Battle of Claremore Mound," in which 38 Osage warriors were killed and 104 were taken captive by the Cherokee and their allies.
As a result of the battle, the United States constructed Fort Smith in present-day Arkansas. It was intended to prevent armed confrontations between the Osage and other tribes. The U.S. compelled the Osage to cede additional land to the federal government in the treaty referred to as Lovely's Purchase.
In 1833, the Osage clashed with the Kiowa near the Wichita Mountains in modern-day south-central Oklahoma, in an incident known as the Cutthroat Gap massacre. The Osage cut off the heads of their victims and arranged them in rows of brass cooking buckets. No Osage died in this attack. Later, Kiowa warriors, allied with the Comanche, raided the Osage and others. In 1836, the Osage prohibited the Kickapoo from entering their Missouri reservation, pushing them back to ceded lands in Illinois.
Reservations and missionaries
Two major treaties with the United States were signed by the Osage: Treaty of St. Louis (1818) and Osage Treaty (1825). In these agreements, the Osage ceded their traditional lands across what are now the western portions of Missouri and Arkansas, plus nearly the entire states of Kansas and Oklahoma. In exchange, they were to receive cash and annuity payments, a reservation in what is now southern Kansas, and equipment to help them adapt to farming and a more settled culture.
They were first relocated to a reservation in what is now southeastern Kansas called the Osage Reservation. The city of Independence later developed there. The first Osage reservation was a 50-by-150-mile (80 by 241 km) strip, with the east–west dimension being the widest. The United Foreign Missionary Society sent clergy to them, supported by the Presbyterian, Dutch Reformed, and Associate Reformed churches. They established the Union, Harmony, Neosho, Boudinot, and three Hopefield missions. Cultural differences often led to conflicts, as the Protestants tried to impose their culture. The Catholic Church also sent missionaries. The Osage were attracted to their sense of mystery and ritual but felt the Catholics did not fully embrace the Osage sense of the spiritual incarnate in nature.
During this period in Kansas, the tribe suffered from the 1837 Great Plains smallpox epidemic, which caused devastating losses among Native Americans from Canada to New Mexico. All clergy except the Catholics abandoned the Osage during the crisis. Most survivors of the epidemic had received vaccinations against the disease. The Osage believed that the loyalty of Catholic priests, who not only stayed with them but also died in the epidemic, created a special covenant between the tribe and the Catholic Church, but they did not convert in great numbers. Catholic clergy accompanied the Osage when they were forced to move again to Indian Territory in what became Oklahoma.
Honoring this special relationship, as well as Catholic sisters who taught their children in schools on reservations, numerous Osage elders went to the city of St. Louis in 2014 to celebrate its 250th anniversary of founding by the French. They participated in a mass partially conducted in Osage at St. Francis Xavier College Church of St. Louis University on April 2, 2014, as part of planned activities. One of the con-celebrants was Todd Nance, who is the first Osage to be ordained as a Catholic priest.
In 1843, the Osage asked the federal government to send "Black Robes", Jesuit missionaries, to their reservation to educate their children; the Osage considered the Jesuits better able to work with their culture than the Protestant missionaries. The Jesuits also established a girls' school operated by the Sisters of Loretto from Kentucky, led by Mother Bridget Hayden.
During a 35-year period, most of the missionaries were new recruits from Europe: Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, and Belgium. They taught, established more than 100 mission stations, built churches, and created the longest-running school system in Kansas.
Civil War and Indian wars
White squatters continued to be a frequent problem for the Osage, but they recovered from population losses, regaining a total of 5,000 citizens by 1850. The Kansas–Nebraska Act resulted in numerous settlers arriving in Kansas Territory; both abolitionists and pro-slavery groups were represented among those trying to establish residency in order to vote on whether the territory should permit slavery. The Osage lands became overrun with European-American settlers. In 1855, the Osage suffered another epidemic of smallpox, because a generation had grown up without getting vaccinated.
During Bleeding Kansas and later the American Civil War the Osage largely stayed neutral, but both sides successfully recruited Osage fighters to their side. John Allen Mathews, an American who married an Osage woman, advocated for the tribe to side with the Confederate States of America. The tribe signed a treaty with the CSA in October 1861. The Jesuit priest Father Schoenmakers recruited Osage fighters for the Union Army.
They struggled simply to survive through famine and the war. During the war, many Caddoan and Creek refugees from Indian Territory came to Osage country in Kansas, further straining their resources. Although the Osage favored the Union by a five to one ratio, they made a treaty with the Confederacy to try to buy some peace. Roughly 200 Osage men were recruited into the Confederate army and formed the Osage Battalion, serving under Cherokee Confederate General Stand Watie.
The Confederacy had considerable difficulty obtaining any significant support from the Indians in Kansas and basically gave up after several attempts at recruitment.
Fearing more bloodshed with the Plains Indians, delegates from the Osage Nation signed the Camp Napoleon Council accord in May 1865 at Verden, Oklahoma, including Wahtahshimgah, Clairmore, NinchamKah, Wahshashewah tah ingah, Kahnak Kihingah, and Black Dog. It had little effect with the U.S., as they ignored this treaty.
From Wikipedia’s article on Osage Nation, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4